Network Rail has installed its first dedicated EV charging facilities for their commercial road fleet at its Swindon and Bristol depots. Moreover, the company has also started trialling a fleet of electric vans for use across its network.
Managed by Novuna Vehicle Solutions, the charging infrastructure will support the trial of 25 fully electric small vans. The trial is part of Network Rail’s Project Zero plan to electrify its entire fleet to meet DfT decarbonisation targets by 2027.
The installation of six charging points at Network Rail’s Swindon depot and a further three at their Bristol depot will see 22kW 3 phase AC chargers fitted which are capable of fully charging the fleet’s electric small vans in under eight hours overnight.
Network Rail is planning further installations at designated sites in Cardiff, Derby, Doncaster, Glasgow, Newcastle, Sandwell & Dudley and Shrewsbury as part of its Poject Zero initiative.
The project to install 24 sockets, across nine sites over a two-year period, runs alongside Novuna’s existing £136m fleet management contract with Network Rail which has seen Novuna Vehicle Solutions overseeing the management of the organisation’s entire owned and leased road fleet, as well as sourcing and supplying over 3,000 lease vehicles since 2019.
As part of the deal, Novuna Vehicle Solution has also provided the organisation with an end-to-end decarbonisation solution including a bespoke transition plans, vehicle leasing, the EV charging infrastructure, as well as back-office management to provide remote diagnostics and enable ongoing maintenance.
Novuna has also completed a comprehensive depot feasibility assessment, evaluating the electricity demand and consumption across each of the proposed sites to ensure the viability of the installation. Triage reporting identified how many EV chargers could be installed within headroom and where smart charging, which uses software to balance the load, would be required.
Novuna Vehicle Solutions also provided vehicle leasing through the supply of fully electric small vans which will operate across all of Network Rail’s multi-site depots. Total cost of ownership modelling was also used to calculate the viability of the proposed EV transition to demonstrate the cost as well as the environmental benefits to Network Rail, which owns and operates the UK’s entire railway infrastructure.
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